Imperial Palace, Asakusa (Part 1)

I went around Tokyo today, trying to see some of the major tourist points. Going by myself without a guide, I think it’s taking me twice as long to get places, but I guess getting lost is part of the fun! I’ve been able to get by using Japanese pretty well. About half the time I get the general gist of what they said, a quarter of the time I completely understand ,and another quarter I have no idea.

First I rode on a double decker tour of the Imperial Palace and Ginza.

A picture from the bus, of the sakura trees just starting to bloom. If I had come to Tokyo a few weeks later, they would be at their peak. I didn’t get any good pictures of the Imperial Palace, because I was sitting on the wrong side of the bus. When I asked the tour guide to move to an empty seat on the other side, she didn’t let me. Look at all those empty seats on the left side, please explain the logic of that to me!

My handy English mechanical tour guide. She had a British accent. I think I was the only non Japanese speaker on the bus.

A big ol’ building near the Imperial Palace. I think it is a government building of some sort. I forgot… but it looked really impressive from the tour bus!

This was taken from the JR station. There were a lot of girls today dressed in kimonos - it seemed like they were all going to some kind of special event. They were really beautiful, like the girl on the left of this picture. I tried to take a few pictures of the girls like a creeper, but none of them came out very well. I was trying to be inconspicuous, and pretend I was taking a picture of… food.

So much delicious food in the subway station! I couldn’t resist and bought one of the green cookies. It crunchy on the outside, soft on the inside, and had an amazing cream filling. I want to eat another one right now just thinking about it.

Next, I visited the small part of Tokyo called Asakusa, a place where “time has stopped since the Edo period”, according to my Toyko Metropolitan Government pamphlet.

There were a lot of cute, old fashioned stores like this in the town.

I’m not sure what this guy’s sign says, but it seems like it’s important. Could he be warning me not to enter Asakusa?

The street leading up to Asakusa’s main temple is lined with almost a hundred stores. It looked pretty cool, but it seemed most of the stores were selling mostly touristy stuff. There were a whole lot of white tourists here, more than I saw anywhere else in Tokyo! I heard an old man mutter something about “hakujin,” and he did not sound very happy.

It’s really strange how much white people stand out in a crowd in Japan, it’s the complete opposite of America. Personally, I’ve found I get excited when I see white people, I feel like they’re a familiar face in a strange country. On the other hand, it’s also weird how much I feel like I blend in with the crowd in Japan, whether or not I actually do. I’m better understanding how conscious of my race I am in America. In Japan, I don’t really worry about not looking like the person next to me like I do in the US (outside of Monterey Park). However, in Japan, I do have to worry everytime I open my mouth to speak, so there you go.

The main temple in Akasuka, called Sensoji Tera. It was also very beautiful and impressive. As you enter the temple, there is a large slatted box where people throw in yen as donations. There were monks inside conducting a Buddhist ceremony, accompanied by chanting and pounding drums. I saw older Japanese people approach the shrine, bow their heads and clasp their hands and pray. It made me remember the excited, spiritual feeling I experienced when I visited temples in Japan ten years ago. There is something about the sense of history of the temple, the beauty of the surroundings, the sounds of traditional drums and the smells of incense that is all very moving.

I ate all day long. I bought this apple pie in a small store off to the side of the main temple walkway, and it was delicious!